Intellectual Property
Use of Video Still Ruled Fair Use as a Matter of Law
Marc RandazzaA crypto empire that collapsed, a porn actress was at the center of it, and there was a failed attempt to use copyright law as a tool of censorship.
Tenth Circuit Affirms Fair Use Defense for Documentary’s Use of Video Footage
James BerkleyRuling after panel rehearing, the Tenth Circuit held that documentary filmmakers need not “target” or directly comment on a copyrighted work for its use in a secondary work to be considered “transformative” under the Copyright Act’s four-factor fair use analysis.
Knew It But Didn’t Stop It: Supreme Court Clarifies Limits on Secondary Copyright Liability in Cox v. Sony
David L. Hayes and Aaron DunnContributory copyright infringement liability now turns on a service provider’s direct actions, such as its active encouragement or design of its services, rather than on the adequacy of compliance programs.
Toothless Termination: What Yonay v. Paramount Pictures Reveals About the Limits of § 203 Termination for Nonfiction Source Material
Jeffrey A. Payne*Yonay did not break new ground; it faithfully applied settled copyright law. But in doing so, the decision revealed a structural mismatch between § 203’s policy ambition (sharing in the fruits of commercial success) and the copyright framework’s limits
Substantial Similarity in Sedlik: The Potential Reckoning of Copyright’s “Intrinsic Test” in the Ninth Circuit
Nancy Wolff and Isabella HyunAlthough Kat Von D won the battle in this case, she may not have ultimately won the war. The days of the Ninth Circuit’s “intrinsic test” may be numbered, as evidenced by the many and detailed criticisms by scholars, practitioners, and now by the court itself.
Hot for Teaching: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Prevails on Transformative Educational Fair Use Defense
Darren W. FordWith two of the four factors weighing in favor of the museum, and only one weighing "slightly" in favor of Zlozower, the district court held that the museum's use of the Van Halen photographs was fair use and dismissed the complaint.
Second Circuit Affirms Dismissal of George Santos’s Copyright Suit
Raphael Holoszyc-Pimentel and Nathan SiegelSantos had sued after the show Jimmy Kimmel Live! ran a segment called “Will Santos Say It?” that mocked Santos’s willingness to say absurd things for money in videos on the site Cameo—videos that Kimmel had allegedly tricked Santos into making.
Fair Use in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: An Analysis of Recent Federal Court Decisions in AI Training Data Cases
Amanda Harris and Jeffrey PayneIn two published orders issued within the same week, two federal judges in the Northern District of California rendered significant decisions addressing whether the use of copyrighted works to train generative artificial intelligence models constitutes fair use under federal copyright law.
Farther Down Transformative Use’s Serpentine Path: Second Circuit Holds That Website’s Use of Snake Photo Is Not Fair Use
Robert RotsteinIn perhaps a novel formulation, Judge Leval wrote that the transformative-use test turns on whether the very copying of the original communicates a message different from the original, in contrast to an extrinsic declaration of a new message.
No Entrance to Legal Paradise: D.C. Court of Appeals Affirms Denial of Copyright Registration for AI-Generated Artwork
Brandon E. HughesThe Court’s ruling is consistent with longstanding law, reaffirming that works exclusively created by AI are ineligible for copyright protection. While this opinion ultimately leaves more nuanced “line-drawing” questions for another day, authors of AI-generated works are likely to continue to register their works with the Copyright Office and engage in legal fights to determine…